If you’re reading this, we know you’re already all-in on using Butter for your collaborative sessions. Thank you for being a Butter-vangelist. 💛

However, your team or clients may need a little convincing to ditch the familiar Zoom or Teams. 

We get it: change is scary! There’s a psychological and real-world cost of switching tools. And Zoom is everywhere—we basically use it as the verb for calling each other online.

But Zoom is also part of a noun: Zoom fatigue. And Butter can help you and your clients get over that Zoom fatigue hump—especially when it comes to complex collaboration situations like workshops or design sprints.

Luckily, we’re here to give you the ammo you need to get better Butter buy-in from your clients.

Inspired by Dana Publicover’s advice for getting client buy-in for your ideas, we’ve put together a list of tips for convincing anyone of the value of Butter.

How to sell anything to anyone

Here’s a quick recap of how to sell people on any idea, method, or tool:

1. Anticipate their objections - Prepare for all the reasons they might say “no” and address their objections head-on. 
2. Understand their challenges - What are they currently struggling with?
3. Show a clear benefit for them - What goals can they achieve from trying your idea?
4. Ask the right way - Ask at the right time, with a compelling story. Have a clear plan and don’t present alternatives. Hear “no” as “not right now”.
   

Let’s take this framework and apply it to using Butter.

1. Anticipate common objections

Before you pitch using Butter to your clients or your team, anticipate any objections you may get and prepare responses.

If they ask a tough question and you already have an answer for them, you’ll show that you’ve already thought this through—instantly earning their trust.

Here are some of the hesitations to use Butter that we've encountered and how you might respond (feel free to steal our answers!).

🔥 Hot tip: Don’t pitch these objections by bringing them up to your client. Just have these answers locked and loaded in case your client raises an objection.

Cost

We’ve already paid for Zoom/Teams/etc. Why should I pay for Butter when I already have a tool for this?

Zoom is a video conferencing tool, whereas Butter is a virtual collaboration tool built specifically for workshops. It’s much more than a Zoom alternative.

Butter lets us plan a session in advance, run the session, and debrief the workshop. What happens during a session might look similar to other tools, but what happens before and after is an unparalleled experience for the facilitator.

The Butter experience itself is also just way more joyful, fun, and productive. The cost of the tool easily pays for itself in the results from our sessions.

Another new tool?

Introducing a new tool to our team is going to be a headache, so I’d rather not…

Butter is super intuitive. If anyone does get stuck, they have a Butter Participant’s Guide for new users and a full Butter Handbook with walkthrough videos to answer any other questions.

Security

How is Butter’s security? We have really strict IT rules on what tools we can use.

Butter uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their data center, which is best-in-class in terms of security practices and compliance. Their data center is located in France and is SOC 1, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 certified with 24/7 operations and enterprise-grade security. 

Their calls are encrypted, so nobody can access them other than the hosts and the participants. They never store any audio, video, or screen-sharing data from any call other than through their documented recording APIs. 

You can learn more about Butter security here.

What about Butter bombing?

Can random people join our call? We’ve been Zoom-bombed more than once because people got the URL from somewhere.

Luckily, there’s no such thing as Butter bombing!

It’s always possible that someone gets access to your Butter room link (or guesses it). But as the owner of a Room, you can turn on the Request to Join functionality. This means everyone has to be approved by the facilitator before entering a session.

Mobile accessibility

I'm worried that Butter doesn’t work on mobile, and I’d love to be able to call in from the road.

Don't worry, Butter has a great mobile app too! Just download the app and copy-paste in our room link to join from your phone.

However, most of the sessions we plan on hosting in Butter aren’t ideal for mobile participation. For example, we’ll be using Butter for Design Sprints where we’ll be collaborating on a Miro board. If you can’t join on your desktop for these types of sessions, it’s better that we reschedule the session.

Convenience

With Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams, I can invite people directly from my calendar. Will I lose that convenience with Butter?

You can invite participants directly via Google Calendar from within the app or through Butter’s Google Calendar integration. And then you can access all of your upcoming Butter sessions directly from the Butter desktop app.

Reliability and stability

I’m scared of trying out Butter for larger sessions because I’ve never seen it in action, so I’m not sure how well it handles weak network connections.

Butter optimizes its performance to the number of people in a session, so it’s still reliable for large groups. But we can run a test session in advance with a smaller group to give it a test run! 

2. Understand their challenges and show a clear benefit

Your clients will be more willing to give Butter a shot if you can show how Butter’s features solve their problems.

What features give them the wins they’re looking for? Think of the major challenges in their role and how Butter might give them quick wins.

A lack of meeting participation and energy (i.e. Zoom fatigue)

My participants are really tired of Zoom/Teams calls. It’s tough to get people engaged.

Butter helps boost the energy in workshops by offering so many different ways to engage. 

Participants can raise their hand to join the queue, react with a fun emoji, answer polls, or participate in the chat. It’s a totally different experience as a facilitator or meeting host—especially when you’re giving a long talk—to receive live reactions to what you’re saying rather than staring at a blank screen.

Tech overload

When we jump between Zoom and other tools, we lose time between activities or people get confused.

Butter integrates Miro, Google Docs, Whiteboards, and YouTube directly into the session window, so you can keep everyone focused on one screen. It will save you tons of time between activities and help you get more done.

Staying present emotionally

On Zoom, you have to minimize Zoom to see the board or your slides, so you miss out on participants’ facial expressions and reactions. 

Butter’s integrations keep everything in one window, so you can still collaborate on your board without having to miss out on people’s reactions.

Breakout communication

It’s difficult to communicate with participants in Zoom when they’re in breakouts. 

Breakout communication in Butter is so amazing. You can observe rooms without joining, let participants request help, monitor task completion, broadcast messages to all groups, and modify breakouts on the fly. It makes it so easy to keep track of every group. I’ll show you a demo!

Challenging communication styles

Zoom calls make it challenging to accommodate different types of communicators.

Butter gives participants access to more modes of communication—whether it’s emoji reactions, chat, video, or voice—to make your sessions more accessible to different types of communicators.

For example, people who don’t want to be (or can’t be) on camera can still be present by taking a selfie as their avatar, reacting with emojis, or using GIFs in the chat.

3. Ask the right way

Finally, you have to be tactful with how you frame your ask. And asking the right way doesn’t just mean saying “pretty please.”

Here are some tips for getting more Butter “yeses.”

Have a plan

In addition to anticipating their objections and understanding their challenges, have a plan for how you’re planning to use Butter.

Do you want to test it in a smaller session first? What impact do you predict it will have on your team’s work? What could go wrong? How will you mitigate potential issues? 

Give a story, not a tour

Don’t act like a real estate agent and give an open-house tour of the product. 

“Here’s Butter. You have reactions. Here’s the chat. You have breakout rooms. It also has built-in music. You can also set timers.” 

Boring! Instead, get people excited with a story.

“I just used Butter for another client workshop and their team was super engaged. We got twice as much done than we did in Zoom because of how involved everyone was.”

Don’t give alternatives

If you give people an easy out, they’ll take it. 

Don’t ask, “What do you think about using Butter for our next workshop? We can also use Zoom if it’s easier…”—they’ll just take the easy road.

Instead, present Butter as the only option. If you get a “no”, present a smaller ask, like “let’s try Butter for our next one-on-one so you can give it a try.”

Ask at the right time

When you ask is as important as how you ask. If you need a client or manager’s approval, ask right after you’ve achieved another win and trust is running high.

Or ask when their challenges are most painful and most in need of solving.

If you’re worried about budget approval, get to know your company’s budgeting process and when they plan for tool expenses. If your company has a thorough IT approval process, be sure to ask sooner rather than later.

Take “no” to mean “not right now”

Even if you plan everything perfectly, you may still get a “no” out of the gate. 

But just by asking, you’ll learn how to make a better ask next time when the opportunity presents itself.

For example, if you keep an eye on our product updates feed, a new feature announcement may be a great trigger to rehash the discussion.

At most companies, everything changes within a few weeks, so don’t be afraid to ask to use Butter again!

Bonus tip: Share success stories

Most clients just want to see proof that you’ve had success with the platform before.

If you can, share a little case study of how you used Butter with another similar client, including the positive outcomes you achieved together.

If you haven’t used Butter with a client yet or need a little inspiration for your success story, feel free to share one of our customer stories to build trust with your clients!

Try Butter for free!

The best way to convince people to use Butter is for them to experience it for themselves! 

Luckily, we start every Butter user off with a free 14-day trial of our most powerful Legendairy plan, so everyone can experience Butter in all its glory.

Start your free trial here!